Let's Talk About: Body Image

I will never forget the day someone pointed out the fact that I had a monobrow. I was six years old, sitting with a girl in the playground, and she found it rather funny that I had one mega-brow.

I spent the next ten years of my life loathing my eyebrows. I hated them. I’d incessantly fuss over them – I hacked at them with scissors, shaved them, plucked them – I’d beg my mum to take me to get them waxed, to which she’d always reply “You’ll regret it! You’re too young!”

Every day, I’d look in the mirror, and I’d want nothing more than to have no eyebrows at all.

Then suddenly, big bushy eyebrows were on trend. They were everywhere – on the glossy pages of magazines, plastered on the face of every runway model in the world, filling up every Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat feed – and I finally stopped hating my eyebrows. I’ve never considered them a burden since.

Despite my aversion to the line of hair on my brow, I never had any negative thoughts surrounding the way my body looked. I grew up the way I believe all children should – no concern to how many calories they consume, no exercise regime, worriless for the inches on their waist or the cellulite dotting their bum. I was a kid – zero awareness, and no concern – exactly as I should have been.

I grew up a skinny little thing – a walking, talking stick figure. I didn’t have time to fuss over what I was or wasn’t eating – all I knew was that spaghetti took far too long to eat and that Barbies and ballet dancing were much better things to be doing.

After I graduated from school, the unimaginable happened: I became entranced by food. Not necessarily just eating it, but cooking it, experimenting with it, learning about it – I was absolutely enthralled by the contents of my plate. This coincided with an emotionally confusing year for me (newfound food fascination + emotions = poor mix) and my entire structure of body image fractured.

I got fat. Not fat fat, but enough that the switch in my brain went from nonchalant to hyperaware. Plump enough that the people around me made sure that I knew it had happened.

“You’ve put on a bit of weight since I saw you last!”

“Thanks…?”

My wardrobe became a sea of loose shirts, I was seething jealousy towards every woman in my life that was a dress size smaller than me, and my obsession with the reflection in the mirror brewed more disgust than my former brows. I could not accept the fact that I was no longer the girl I’d been my whole life. Not a waking hour went by where my newly acquitted chub wasn’t in the forefront of my mind.

If that wasn’t enough, this dark age lead to my first ever toxic relationship: Instagram. If paralleling my current self to past me wasn’t hellish enough, Instagram felt the need to introduce me to millions of perfectly-proportioned, drop-dead gorgeous women Every. Single. Day. And the pit of self-loathing got deeper and deeper.

This distaste for my appearance, unlike my eyebrows, is a burden that STILL follows me around every day. I can very easily look into the mirror and hurl an insult at my reflection.

I’ve never had an eating disorder, but I am fully aware that I have disordered thinking.

It’s completely and utterly fucked.

You know what the saddest part is? This broken structure of self-image, as I have learnt in the past few years, is shared by almost every woman I know. It’s more normal to hate yourself than to like the way you look.

A global study in 2016 revealed that 8 in every 10 girls opt out of important life activities such as engaging with friends and loved ones because they don’t feel good about the way they look. EIGHT in every TEN. In Australia, 80% of women said that they are not body confident.

Seriously, how the HELL did we end up here?

By writing this, I wanted to bring forward some awareness to this issue; for myself and for all my fellow sisters.

What if I’m still fussing over this nonsense in five years time? Ten years? What if my whole life, I’m never quite content? What will ever qualify as ‘good enough’?

All questions that have no answers for me yet, and ones that I dread to think I'll still be asking in the future.

Living an entire lifetime with this on my mind is one I am simply not interested in. I'm vehement on changing my mentality.  

The only way this issue can begin to resolve itself for women collectively, is if we change the normalisation of poor self image within society. No - it is not normal to put ourselves through crash diets, lust after physical attributes of other women and project negativity to our own bodies. What will it take – how many horrible statistics and pleas for help – for us to realise that this isn’t “just the way it is”. This is not normal.

There may be people in your life where it goes undiagnosed – but please understand that even the most confident and unsuspecting people fall victim to an unhealthy mindset. I think the most important thing you can do is tell them – your mothers, sisters, friends, girlfriends – tell them how much you value exactly who they are, and most importantly, that their appearance does not equate their worth.

And you, you who are reading this and feeling that feeling – I know it is hard to hear, and I know you may not even believe it, but I don’t care what you look like. Or how much you weigh. Or even how bushy your eyebrows are. I love you exactly the way you are.